


Solitary - Prompt 4

by Name1



Series: Mandalorian Ficathon and other prompts [1]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, F/M, Ficathon, Fluff and Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-08
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-02-23 14:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,674
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23546266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Name1/pseuds/Name1
Summary: He saw people leave the cantina in two and threes and tried to ignore the pang of jealousy he felt, not to mention his almost self-flagellating curiosity about where they would go and what it was like to spend a night with friends.  At night he was left only with his thoughts as he went to sleep. There was no one to share his day with, no one to plan jobs with, and no one who would even know or care if he came back to the Crest safely at the end of the day.He sighed out loud to himself.This was just a moment of weakness, that’s all. Just a momentary lapse of conviction, nothing more. There was no way his life was changing any time soon, so better get used to it. ….And then came Cara fucking Dune.
Relationships: Cara Dune & The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV), Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: Mandalorian Ficathon and other prompts [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1694569
Comments: 52
Kudos: 100
Collections: The Mandalorian Ficathon — April 2020





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sooooo.....  
> I decided to try writing something short for the Mandalorian Ficathon :)  
> It goes without saying but this travesty is completely standalone from my other stories
> 
> Keeping with the evolving trend of brevity, I managed to keep it under 2K, which I was pretty proud of - don't laugh at me :)

Din’s life could be called solitary by some and downright lonely by others. _He preferred the term solitary._ It made it sound as if the days and nights he spent in isolation were by choice. Truthfully, there _were_ advantages to working alone: no one to fuck up your carefully constructed plan, no one to split the reward with, no one to stab you in the back when you let our guard down. These were some of the pretty little lies he told himself often.

Bounty hunting was a solitary profession by trade but being a Mandalorian was a solitary life by necessity. He was both. His people were few in numbers and their survival was in not only their strength, but their ability to hide in plain sight. He had all but surrendered his future to living a life of isolation to bring honor to his clan as well as himself, but he couldn’t lie to himself all the time. The nights were the worst.

He saw people leave the cantina in two and threes and tried to ignore the pang of jealousy he felt, not to mention his almost self-flagellating curiosity about where they would go and what it was like to spend a night with friends. At night he was left only with his thoughts as he went to sleep. There was no one to share his day with, no one to plan jobs with, and no one who would even know or care if he came back to the Crest safely at the end of the day.

_He sighed out loud to himself._

This was just a moment of weakness, that’s all. Just a momentary lapse of conviction, nothing more. There was no way his life was changing any time soon, so better get used to it. ….

And then came Cara fucking Dune.

She had wormed her way so easily into his life it had alarmed him at first. Was he being fooled by a pretty face? Was she a professional con artist, waiting for him to let his guard down to pounce? There was no other way to explain her interest in _him_ ; the instant connection they seemed to have. She came in like a battering ram and broke down his life of isolation before he even realized it had happened. _It didn’t make any sense._ They could be surrounded by loquacious, friendly people and she would always find her way to the corner of the room to sit and talk with _him._ Perhaps it was the fact that they always naturally found the same blind spot with the best access to the exit, but it seemed to be something more than that. They were so alike that he worried they would do nothing but butt heads, but that never happened. She was just there; quietly in the background when he needed her to be and in-your-face when he needed that too. When she agreed to travel with him exclusively, he figured it would be an uncomfortable, awkward arrangement without other people to buffer his naturally quiet persona, but it was the opposite. Cara sought him out to complain about this and that, ask him questions, or just sit beside him and shoot the shit in a way he didn’t know was possible before meeting her. She drew him out so easily. Before he knew it, he found himself seeking her out throughout the day.

She was always ready to converse with him, no matter the time of day and she was f _unny_. He couldn’t remember laughing so much in his life. He wanted to blame it on her lack of filter, but he knew that simply wasn’t true. She might be loud and caustic and outright bombastic in mixed company, but he knew the real Cara was quiet and contemplative, always thinking two steps ahead. She might be hot-headed, but she wasn’t impulsive where it really mattered; she only spoke with him because she _wanted to_ ; she saw something in him that she enjoyed and it made his head spin trying to figure out what it was so he could bring it to the surface more frequently. Before he knew it, his solitary life was no more. He didn’t want to spend a day without her body filling his space and her voice filling his head. How could he ever go from this back to a life alone, a Cara-less life? A friend-less life? _That's what she was wasn't she?_

They left the cantina _together_ now. He planned the next job _with her_ , he shared his days with her, and she would _definitely_ notice and bring down all Hell if he didn’t come back in one piece. It brought a smile to his face just remembering the look on her face when he managed to take a knife to the leg, right where the Beskar ended. He saw something more in her eyes that day and it both scared and thrilled him to consider it. Her smile lit up a room, but there was this one grin she had, the one where she bit her lip, that she seemed to save only for him…..

It made his face hot every time she directed it at him, usually after some flirty, almost exploratory or hesitant banter had passed between the two and he hoped he was reading the intent behind it correctly.

She had already given him more than he ever expected out of life and to risk it all for a chance they could become _more_ was a terrifying gamble. He was terrible at gambling, but she had a way of making him want to throw all his chips in just for a chance he might win for once. ‘ _Win what_?’ he asked himself; A smile? Her hand on his arm? Her sleepy head resting against his shoulder? She was everywhere now, and he didn’t miss the loss of his personal space at all.

The only time he sought out isolation now was in his bunk at night after she turned in. He had to wait until he was sure she was asleep in case she heard him cry out her name when he touched himself. As much as his brain actively tried to ignore it, his body simply couldn’t; _she was fucking gorgeous._ He wanted to know what her hair felt like between his bare fingers. Was it thick and coarse, or just lush and soft? Would she like it if he tangled his hand in it and slightly tugged her head back so he could kiss her pale throat? What would her skin taste like after they sparred in the afternoons? He could almost taste the salt on his tongue as he imagined it. After he kissed the elegant expanse of her throat, he would work his way down to her collarbone to sample the soft skin there. _Purely for research purposes, mind you. He simply had to know if it tasted the same or not._ Would she let out a moan if he lightly grazed his teeth over it and then laved it with his tongue?

_Fuck_ , he really hoped she was asleep as he tossed his blankets back and pushed his loose sleep pants down his hips to get a hand around himself as his eyes fluttered closed.

The privacy of his mind used to be filled with useless things like weapons inventory, job statistics, and bits of languages he picked up here and there during his travels. Now, that had all gone out the window, and all he could think about was her when he closed his eyes. What would her strong hands feel like if she boldly reached into his pants when they were both worked up after a fight? He spit into his palm and hissed through his teeth when his hand wrapped around his length again as he imagined her working him in quick eager strokes.

He felt his head push further back into his pillow as he imagined what her breasts would feel like pressed against him. What would they feel like encased in his palms? He lost himself as he could almost feel their softness, their beautiful weight in his hands as he kneaded them together so he could bury his face into her cleavage, chasing the taste of her sweat further down her body.

His fantasy had changed so quickly it almost gave him whiplash. No longer was he imagining his hands creeping up her bare and gloriously muscular thighs as the nightshirt she wore rode dangerously high when she bent over…. His perspective had changed.

Suddenly, in his mind he saw her over him, kissing down his chest. His hand was working furiously now; any semblance of enjoying some leisurely pleasure gone. The feel of his palm also gone, as his fingers and thumb stroked that one spot along the underside of his sensitive tip with fierce determination to finally put an end to his suffering.

The thought of her hand on him had his back arching, but it was imagining her _damn_ smirk just before her lips parted over his aching length that had him spilling into his hand and over his stomach as he tried to muffle his cry.

As he came back down and the blood returned to his brain, he had never been so thankful for his own private space. He put his ear against the wall to assure himself Cara was still asleep, but he was horrified to hear movement on her side of the wall.

_She was still awake? Fuck, just how loud had he been? Did her name pass over his lips and he didn’t even realize it?_

_What was she doing awake this late anyway?_

He put his ear to the wall again and he heard the sounds of what sounded like her tossing and turning in bed; he could even hear the rustling of bedclothes and the shifting of her mattress.

‘ _Oh good_ ,’ he thought, she wasn’t awake; just tossing and turning. Maybe she was having a nightmare….. Should he go and wake her up or pretend he didn’t hear it to save her from the embarrassment?

He was about to roll over and go to sleep but he heard her moan and he froze. She moaned again, and his face warmed up as he realized there was no way a moan like _that_ came from a nightmare.

He hated that he couldn’t tear himself away. When he heard her gasp his name a first time, and then whimper it a second time through the divider, he knew it was a lost cause. He wouldn’t be going to sleep any time soon. He backed away from the wall as he started to feel guilty for encroaching on her privacy, but he still heard his name over and over in his head and imagined he would for days.

So much for his solitary life…


	2. Chapter 2

Cara's life could be called solitary by some and downright lonely by others. She _preferred_ the term solitary. It made it sounds as if the days and nights she spent in isolation were by choice. Truthfully, there were advantages to working alone: no one to fuck up your carefully constructed plans, no one to split the reward with, and no one to stab you in the back when you let your guard down. These were some of the pretty little lies she told herself. 

As an ex-shocktrooper, she couldn’t allow herself to get close to anyone and that was more than fine by her. She was on the lamb, and anyone she came across could end up being the friendly face who turned her in. _She was better off alone._ Taking jobs as a mercenary to keep food in her belly and charges in her blaster made her more visible than she was comfortable with, but outside of jobs she isolated herself out of necessity but also desire. She convinced herself she _enjoyed_ the solitary life and would never want it any other way, but she couldn't lie to herself all the time.

_The nights were the worst._

Sleeping in the woods or in alleys with one finger on the trigger was exhausting and without having a home to return to, the nights could be cold and unforgiving even in the desert. She wasn’t exactly proud of it, but she had broken into abandoned buildings where she could escape the elements once or twice when she had been especially desperate.

Big cities were different too. Anyone with a brain knew finding the high ground was the best place to be and she had taken to camping out on rooftops in larger cities when she had the choice so no one could get the drop on her. Sitting on the rooftop at night, staring out into the bustling city, made her feel even more alone than usual. Like thousands of twinkling stars, the lights from the houses and business mocked her with their number and their beauty. Each of those lights represented a person--a person with friends and a family and a warm home to come back to. It didn’t make any sense that she felt the most alone in the busiest of cities, but being surrounded by strangers was more infinitely more lonely than being alone. She was surrounded by people with somewhere to be; people with friends and families who expected them to stop by to chat or share a meal and would look for them if they went missing. _Must be nice……_

She shakes her head to re-center herself. This was just a moment of weakness, that's all.

Living in anonymity and seclusion was her life now ......

Backwater planet to backwater planet, always on the move….

There was no way her life was changing any time soon, so she better get used to it 

And then came Din _fucking_ Djarin and his cute green baby. 

..............................

From the very beginning when she only knew him as Mando, he became the closest thing to a friend she had claimed in years. When he came back for her and he started to feel like _family_ she had to push down the surge of panic that crept up her neck. When he cared about her and worried about her injuries he started to feel like something else and she had to fight the urge to run away from someone kind who could see right through her and chose to be with her anyway. ‘ _Leave before he leaves you_ ’, was the traitorous voice that whispered to her at night when she admitted she cared for him. Caring about him was _dangerous_ and not in the way a Mandalorian was typically thought of as dangerous either.

He had crashed into her unexpectedly and broken down all her walls of bullshit like they were nothing–balsa wood instead of steel. Before Din, she didn’t do much of anything worthwhileand had all but forgotten what it was like to live for a purpose. She was no longer a shell that simply fought and ate and slept and repeated it all the next day.

She didn't talk and he made her talk.

She didn't laugh and he made her laugh

She didn't play and he made her play and stoked that old competitive streak she thought was lost forever. 

She didn't care about anyone, _never would again_ , but he made her care.

The day she watched his life pouring out of him was as painful as if she had suffered his injuries herself--m _aybe more so_. Losing someone who made her feel alive again was worse than death in her eyes. Even now, months later, she couldn’t think about it without feeling the heat of the fire on her face and the wetness in her eyes; an eerie mirror of the sticky wetness on her hand that came away from the base of his neck. The helplessness and despair she felt when she thought he was dying was a horrible yet effective wake-up call of what she was losing with or without admitting what he’d come to mean to her. Denying it didn’t make losing him any less painful like she thought it would, so she finally allowed herself to name the feeling in her chest, though only in the privacy of her mind.

Her breath had stalled in her lungs as she thought of losing her---

‘The thought of losing her ...... _what_?’ she thought.

Her _friend_?

Her _partner_?

Her ‘ _more than that’_?

They had traveled together for a while now and there was something else developing, that much was clear. Neither of them were liars, and though they might not draw attention to it they both knew it was there. They were simply _more_ than they used to be, but still in this wonderful and frustrating place between ‘too much’ and ‘not enough’. It was never enough lately……

They were attracted to each other—that much was obvious to a blind man. They could feel it in the air when they touched, when they laughed, and even when they sat in quiet stillness. Both had been burned losing loved ones and were hesitant to put all their cards on the table, but things were shifting every day and it was hard to keep up. She notices he keeps his hands on her a few seconds longer than he used to. He holds her hips when he pins her now and their hands find each other’s in the night when they fall asleep on the floor watching the kid work on his puzzles.

Usually they were so good communicating, which made it all the more frustrating. Little gestures like a head tilt, a lowered shoulder, or a raised eyebrow could convey whole thoughts, so how could they ignore this much longer? Their bodies seemed to have it figured out though--so in tune with each other that they recognized each other’s wants and desires even when their words and brains lagged stubbornly behind. ‘ _How long would it take for them to actually give this thing a name?_ ’ she wondered.

One thing was for sure--she wasn't alone anymore and that thought both thrilled and terrified her at the same time. She had something to lose again and she wasn’t sure she could survive any more loss—but here he was, a steadfast presence in her life; the closest thing to family she had. They watched from the top of buildings together as the sun went down and lights flickered on across the city--she didn’t feel lonely watching them anymore. They shopped and trained together and laughed more than she would have thought possible years ago. At some point when she wasn’t paying attention or was distracted by his shiny armor, he had slipped past her defenses and they had formed a family despite her fighting it tooth and nail. _Even in her mind, the ‘F-word’ made her feel funny._

Months before meeting him and teaching him a lesson about following someone, she had outright refused to get close to another person again, but he made it so easy she never even realized it was happening until it was too late. 

_Dammit._ _It was too late._

Now she _cared_ about that idiot, respected him, and even _loved_ him in the privacy of her mind; but she was still sometimes just a woman with needs. When they fought, she couldn’t always ignore the way his body felt against hers or the warm and spicy smell of his sweaty shirts when he managed to pin her with the weight of his chest. His cocky laugh that she never heard around anyone but her, did things to her recently that made her question just how much longer she could keep dancing around her attraction to him. They'd go to bed after a spirited training session and her blood would still be on fire; her heart still racing; her body high strung and desperate for relief.

She strips down for bed, but her mind was filled with thoughts of Din and the numerous what-ifs that might exist in another life.

She wants to walk over to his bunk and climb in beside him. In another dimension where they weren’t so afraid of overstepping the lines drawn in invisible ink that kept their relationship in-between something _good_ and something _great_ , would he turn her away or would they lose themselves in each other in the dark?

‘ _Oh well, just another night alone with her thoughts,_ ’ she thinks wearily, trying not to let the what-ifs drive her crazy.

Which fantasy would she let herself live tonight?

Let’s see…….

There was the one where he stood behind her in the galley--her hands clutching the counter to keep her standing. Her back was to him, so the helmet was gone. Her shirt was shoved down to her waist and his mouth ran down the center of her back between her shoulder blades as he reached around to fondle and tease her breasts. She really like that one, especially when he finally gave her the relief she was seeking by tearing off a glove and easing his fingers into her panties as she pushed back against him to make him growl in her ear.

There was the one where their sparring turned into something else entirely when he reached down between them where her legs were wrapped around his waist to unfasten her pants. In the solitude of her bed she imagined kissing his neck right under the edge of his helmet and could almost feel his warm breath panting against her in return.

There was the one where she felt the cool metal of his helmet against her cheek as she takes him in the cockpit chair--his pants bunched around his knees in haste as she lifts up her night shirt to ride him until they’re both sweating and shaking. His hands hold her hips so tight to guide her where he wants her that his fingers must be going numb but neither seem to notice. _She gets off embarrassingly fast with that one._ There’s just something about imagining him hard and eager against her followed by the fullness she imagines when she sinks down on him as he teases her and challenges her for more that is so realistic she forgets it’s a fantasy. In a blink, she lets him take over and flip her as he pulls her to the edge of the chair to get an even better angle to make her cry out in pleasure just before he finally finishes inside her. _Yeah…… She doesn’t last long with that one for several reasons…._

And how could she forget the one on her knees in the shower imagining his moans resonating above her? In that one, her own fingers work furiously to beat him to the release that she can hear is close. That one always quickly spirals into her on her back in her bed where he turns out the lights and buries his face between her legs to return the favor. _She never lasts very long with that fantasy either._

Her catalogue was getting quite plentiful and diverse—so much so, that she felt heat rise up her cheeks when she saw him leave the cockpit, prepare breakfast in the galley, or turn on the shower. _So, which one was she feeling tonight?_

She was restless and on edge but despite the rough play during sparring earlier, she couldn’t imagine any scenario where he would be rough with her in bed or even _hurried_ for that matter. That smug asshole would probably be annoyingly gentle and drag it out to make her beg just to piss her off. She closed her eyes and just let her mind decide where it would take her. He was asleep only a few yards away in his own bed and the wall they shared was the only thing giving her any semblance of privacy as she closed her eyes. ‘ _Gentle,’_ she thinks, choosing what she would imagine tonight _. ‘Din would be gentle…..’_

She stripped her shirt over her head letting the cold air kiss her nipples as she imagined him kissing down her chest before taking a hardened nipple in his warm mouth.

_She really hoped he was asleep._

She wasn’t going to last long at all with how desperate she was, and it was quite possible she wouldn’t be all that quiet either. She reached up and tangled a hand in her own hair and tugged her head back as she imagined Din’s hand doing the exact same thing so he could kiss and suck at her exposed throat. Her back arched as she imagined his mouth traveling from her neck to her chest and maddeningly slow down a path of his own design to her stomach and lower still. Her hands were in his hair and she was helpless to do anything other than hold on as he took his time enjoying her before he reached the elastic separating him from his destination. She worked her panties down her legs before kicking them off somewhere in the general vicinity of the foot of the bed. _She could worry about finding them later._

She used her left hand to nudge her thighs apart as she imagined him doing and by the time her fingers followed Din’s trail to where she wanted him most, she was almost shaking with anticipation. She kept one hand on the inside of her thigh to hold it open as he likely would, while the other hand was a poor surrogate for his eager mouth as she squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She was so wet already—it would almost be comical if she could feel anything other than _heat_ and _want_. She touched herself as she imagined his tongue would--gentle and tentative at first, before growing bolder and more daring until her legs were tangled in the blankets and she felt sweat along her forehead and down her neck with the strain of holding off her release. Her toes were curled so tightly she felt a cramp in her calf, but she was almost there…….

What finally sent her over the edge was a sound from his side of the wall they shared that sounded dangerously like her name. She knew he must be asleep but as soon as she let herself imagine it really _was_ her name she just heard, her whole body clenched as the heat and mind-numbing ecstasy of her release tore through her. She heard her voice gasp his own name as she let go and even whimpered it at least once more as she came down, but she couldn’t have stopped it if she tried.

She listened closely as she heard his blankets rustling and hoped she hadn’t woken him up. ‘ _How would she explain that_?’ she thought. On second thought, maybe if he came in to check on her in her current state, _naked and panting with his name lingering on her lips,_ it might be the push they both needed to get this show on the road.

Now that her head was clear and not addled with sexual frustration she could think more clearly. She knew he took way more showers than necessary and she wasn’t an idiot as to the reason behind it. She had also been certain she had heard her name come from his bed just now. They had both tried to deal with this attraction they felt on their own but maybe that wasn’t the solution at all--Maybe they should deal with it _together_. Their isolated lives had become one shared one, and maybe the braver or more stupid of them should take the initiative and face this thing head-on like they did everything else.

_Fine, she was no coward and she had been called both brave and stupid before. She checked all the necessary boxes._

She threw on a shirt and padded her bare feet over to his door before knocking. “Din, you awake?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for:  
> itsjustafeys, chamel, gernetiana, scarlett2u, wkpx911 and anyone I left off who specifically asked for a follow up chapter. I'm slow, but I got there :D
> 
> thanks for reading! Drop me a line if you enjoyed it.  
> Have a great day :D

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading as always!  
> leave me a "hello" if you enjoyed it :)
> 
> I wrote this in like an hour so I'm under no illusion this is my best work but I'm trying to practice writing shorter things, so here we are :D
> 
> Happy quarantine distraction to you all, especially my fellow 'essential employees' :)


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